Tag: salvation

Some time back, someone asked me whether particular kinds of stories were inherently Christian stories, and I didn’t have an answer at that moment. I have since suggested, notably in considering Faust, Sorcerer, and Deals with the devil, that some stories might indeed be at least strongly if not inherently Christian. However, the questioner was not considering the Faustian story when he raised the question; he was thinking of the Prodigal story, the story of redemption, as that which is an inherently Christian story.

It’s a compelling notion. After all, one of the names often given to the central message of our faith is The Redemption Story, and thus we have good reason to ask whether all redemption stories necessarily tell of the truth in the gospel to some degree. Playing a character who fell and was then redeemed seems like it would fit perfectly into this mold, a parable of Christianity in a fictional setting.

Of course, the gospel is in a sense not that sort of redemption story; Read more

Thanks to Goethe, there is a very compelling story of a man named Faust, a man who made a deal with the devil. The story has become something of a cultural idea, such that the word “Faustian” is used to describe any effort to achieve something at too great a cost. Faust, according to the story, sold his soul to the devil.

I have not read the book, I am embarrassed to admit; there are many great books I have not had the opportunity to acquire or the time to peruse. I have been exposed to the core of the story through educational television, so I am aware that the deal did not work out so well for Faust. He discovered that everything the devil gave him was a cheat, and everything he had that might have been good his supposed benefactor managed to ruin. Yet in the end he found redemption. What interests me more is the idea that someone might make such a deal with the devil and not have the kinds of complaints Goethe suggested for his protagonist. There are always stories of people who sold their soul to the devil for what they really wanted; those deals fascinated me. Read more

Last month as we explored ways to express our faith in our gaming, we suggested that it could be done by playing the Good Guys. But we also insisted that this was not the only way it could be done. In fact, quite unexpectedly, we can often bring our faith to bear on a game by playing the villains. This is done, most commonly, by revealing what evil truly is. C. S. Lewis once wrote that good could easily understand evil, but that evil not only did not understand good, it did not as fully understand itself. Many gamers play evil characters thinking it is the easy and rewarding path. By showing what evil is really about, the Christian gamer can point people to the truth. Read more

In recent months we have drifted away from the central purpose of this series—that of examining how our faith and our gaming hobby may be integrated—into responding to the criticisms of other Christians. This is in some ways a necessary part of what we are doing. If well-intentioned Christians think that our hobby is wrong, we need to examine what they say and what we do very closely. But to some degree, the critics have derailed us, pulling us away from the basics of our discussion. It’s time to get back on track. To do this, we’re going to travel back to the fundamentals, where we began.

And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.—James 3:18, UNASBRead more

I’m going to challenge you today with a question that maybe you have never asked yourself, and yet you have probably answered—and further, that you have probably answered both yes and no in different situations.

Is it wrong for us as Christians to imagine a world that is different from the one God created for us?

I suspect that you have probably just now reacted with, “No, of course not,” maybe even so strong as “That’s ridiculous.” Yet I also wonder if that’s what you really think. But perhaps you don’t see the problem Read more